African american community. where pioneer like Mizell, Sis trunk, Burris, Smiths,Shirley, and Smalls,. Freemason in all walks of life build there hall, which at hat time was call Dorsey Park. Pioneer assisted with delopment of this community by address the isuses of :civil rights, business, organization where founded. the structure from the Leadership were alway on the cutting edge. The culture
are Simon Indain Bahamian,Jamaican and southern migrate from Georgia to which was call Dosrey Park. Community is changing it on the path of ecoThe city of Fort Lauderdale's celebration of its Centennial in 2011 is also a celebration of the role played by African Americans throughout the area's sometimes turbulent history and their contributions to its growth. Many of Fort Lauderdale's first Black pioneers worked on the Florida East Coast Railway in the 1890s, helping to build the extension of Henry Flagler's railroad from Jacksonville to Miami which brought a diversity of new residents and visitors, year-round. Today, various cultures of African descent live and work in Greater Fort Lauderdale, including Bahamians, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Haitians, and Afro-Latinos. The area is a magnet for meetings of professional organizations such as the National Baptist Congress, the National Urban League, 100 Black Men of America, and National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and also a hub for annual family reunions uniting relatives from the U.S. and Caribbean. From 1900 to the 1920s, Blacks and Whites in Fort Lauderdale lived near the famous stretches of beach that offer boating and water sports fun today. They worked side-by-side in the business of growing and shipping produce and suffered losses when destructive hurricanes took lives extensively damaged hastily-built homes. Those losses and the negative publicity curbed tourism and growth. The Great Depression followed, economically crippling the rest of the nation. As segregation also became entrenched in the 1930s, Black residents found themselves legally proscribed to an area of Fort Lauderdale far away from the beach, west of the railroad tracks they helped to build. Still, as Fort Lauderdale began to grow again, their work in service jobs became the bedrock of the emerging tourism industry. Blacks managed to create a robust network of businesses, entertainment, and successful entrepreneurs. From the 1930s until the 1960s, members of the Negro Chamber of Commerce served the growing community with the Victory movie theater, nightclubs like the Windsor Club that featured the Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, and a hotel, which millionaire John Hill II, housed Black performers who performed at segregated White hotels. In Greater Fort Lauderdale's historic Black district surrounding Sistrunk Boulevard, the entrepreneurial spirits survives with venerable establishments such as Betty's Soul Food Restaurant and the Jerk Machine, the Elks Social Club, and Ujamaa, Florida's number one African bookstore, not too far away. Visitors can also tour attractions such as the Old Dillard Museum, a center for artifacts, lectures, and performances housed in the first schoolhouse for Blacks, and the African American Research Library and Cultural Center which has exhibits, programs and material on genealogy, local history, and the African Diaspora. A plaque honoring Hill is also on view. Sistrunk Boulevard is named for the community's longtime physician, Dr. James Sistrunk, who, in 1938, founded the only hospital for African Americans on that street. Provident Hospital served Black residents until 1964 when the county hospital was integrated. nimics growth with new family and cultures moving into the COMMUNITY.
